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Re: Can I feed Pollen patties right now?

You can buy a box of protein patties from Mann Lake, though I question why you woul;d want to. Seems like there aught to be pollen coming in from the environment. I don't know if it is a good idea to do that now. You may not get the results that you are hoping for. It's not that instantaneous.

I think you may be trying to control something you don't need to. Bees make better beekeepers than beekeepers make bees.

Re: Can I feed Pollen patties right now?

Originally Posted by sqkcrk

You can buy a box of protein patties from Mann Lake, though I question why you would want to. Seems like there aught to be pollen coming in from the environment. I don't know if it is a good idea to do that now. You may not get the results that you are hoping for. It's not that instantaneous.

I'm feeding all my nucs with pollen patties although we're getting a good pollen flow. I believe they survive the winter better with good fall feed. You need to make sure your mite counts are low too.

Re: Can I feed Pollen patties right now?

Originally Posted by sqkcrk

I don't know if it is a good idea to do that now.

Any time now Keith Jarrett is probably going to chime in and say something to the effect that feeding protein supplement in the fall puts more nutrition in the worker bees bodies making them more healthy and disease resistant going into winter whereas natural pollen will be either stored away or fed to brood.

Nutra Bee

Too which I would add that you need to plan what you are going to do with all those bees in the spring if you start now feeding sub, because they are likely to be very populous and prone to swarm if you don't plan to split or something first. That has been my experience, but it's a way better problem to have than weak sickly hives with small clusters.

Re: Can I feed Pollen patties right now?

It certainly will not hurt to feed protein, but don't feed more than they can use. Check to see how much pollen they are hauling in and how much is in the hive -- there must be a fair amount this time of year as the winter dearth will be starting and if they don't have enough, you get weak bees.

Our climate here is different, but we've had good luck with a pound per hive of pollen supplement in September, fed in smaller amounts (hive beetles love it too). Nice fat bees make for nice clusters and plenty of resources for making winter brood and hence large, strong hives in spring.